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20| December 2015 | restaurant| bighospitality.co.uk
Park
Chinois
Alan Yau’s latest venture
is a modern interpretation
of the dinner and dancing
clubs of 1930s Shanghai,
oozing old money and older
values. And it’s hard not
to love it
Whatever your view of expensive restaurants
pitched squarely at very rich people, it’s difficult
not to feel a tingle of excitement as you enter
Park Chinois. Alan Yau’s Mayfair debut looks like
the sort of place a Bond villain would frequent.
The restaurateur’s description of the Berkeley
Street venue as an “entertainment lifestyle
project” is not far off the mark: Park Chinois is as
much a theatre as it is a restaurant, and one that
makes you feel like part of the cast rather than a
mere spectator.
Both the concept and the look of the place
reference the dinner and dancing clubs of 1930s
Shanghai. Yau’s vision is to create a Chinese
restaurant that exudes old school luxury and
offers a counterbalance to club culture with live
music central to the experience. There are two
house acts – a string quartet and the 8 Clouds of
Joy; an eight-piece band – which are
supplemented by guest musicians.
As the man who created Hakkasan,
Wagamama, Busaba Eathai and Yauatcha, Yau is
known for head-turning spaces but, even by his
standards, this 15,200sq ft space is a knockout.
As the name suggests, Park Chinois’ lavish look
is inspired by the east-meets-west, highly
decorative aesthetic of Chinoiserie.
Conceived in partnership with famed French
designer Jacques Garcia, the project is much
more in-your-face than anything Yau has done
before. All gold, red velvet and tassels, it’s a world
away from the brooding Blade Runner aesthetic
of Hakkasan or the minimalistic Wagamama.
Yau is more than ready to lock horns with
competing ultra-luxury restaurants Nobu,
Novikov and Richard Caring’s recently opened
Sexy Fish, all of which are moments away. And it
must be said he has out-blinged them all.
No expense has been spared. Each of the
mini-sofas clad in pale blue and pink fabric in
Park Chinois’ main 108-cover dining room
probably cost as much as a family car and the
restaurant’s satisfyingly weighty brass chopstick
rests are set to become the capital’s most
covetable bit of tableware since Bibendum’s
ashtrays. Estimates vary, but the whole project is
rumoured to have cost north of £20m. While it’s
hard to say it’s money well-spent, there’s no
denying the impact it has created.
All this needs to be paid for and few will be
surprised to learn that Park Chinois is as
expensive as it looks. The menu is as
shamelessly opulent as the dining room and
kicks off with Duck de Chine, an oft mistreated
Chinese restaurant classic that Yau’s kitchen
team – headed by former Min Jiang chef Lee Che
Liang – handles with considerable dexterity.
It is Cantonese-style roast duck rather than
Peking, which is – traditionally, at least – not
marinaded and served in a succession of
courses. The duck is cooked to order and
chopped into neat sections with a cleaver and
served with pancakes, cucumber, spring onion
and duck sauce. A whole duck is priced at £75
and is intended to be eaten alongside a portion
of caviar, the most costly being the Iranian Huso
Huso at £280 for 50g.
The dominant cooking style here is
Cantonese (Yau was born in Hong Kong) but
other parts of the Chinese canon get a look in
too. Park Chinois’ owner’s love of south-east
Asian food is in evidence too: soft shell crab is
scattered with coconut and curry leaf, and the
salt and pepper squid with green papaya salad is
a surprisingly successful mash-up of the
deep-fried Chinese restaurant classic with
Thailand’s go-to salad som tam.
Some of the dishes Yau and Che Liang have
come up with are tweaked classics while others
are much more ambitious, not least Park Chinois’
take on carbonara made with udon noodles, sea
urchin and water-bath cooked egg. Dishes are
expertly divided and served in neat little piles, a
service style that further enforces Park Chinois’
pleasingly old school vibe.
The wine list is relatively tight but it’s not
short of heavy hitters currently topping out at a
£6,757 Petrus. Entry level prices are around the
£40 mark but those unwilling to spend over £60
will not have much choice.
With no opening party and little PR, bar a
well-populated Instagram account, Park Chinois
is already one of the hottest tickets in town.
While some will be turned off by this sort of
blockbuster-budget decadence, as an overall
package it is far more elegant and appealing
than it sounds. Should Park Chinois turn out
to be Yau’s last new project – he keeps saying
he’s going to retire – this landmark restaurant
will be some swansong.
17 Berkeley St, London
parkchinois.com
On the menu
Norwegian King Crab,
Qing Hu rice wine,
home-made rice noodle £42
Soft shell crab, coconut,
curry leaf, dried chilli £14
Scampi, stir-fry, sea urchin,
white fungus, lily bulb £44
Angus beef short ribs,
baby shallot, black bean £28
Welsh lamb, air-dried rib-eye beef,
Chinese chive, dried shrimp,
red chilli £35
‘Gold’ 82% chocolate aspic,
almond ice cream, hazelnuts £12
Words/Joe Lutrario